Cops and Cameras

The fact that Eric Garner’s death was clearly filmed raises justifiable criticisms regarding the proposed cameras’ effectiveness. At the same time, the large, national protests over the non-indictment are due in part to the horror of witnessing Mr. Garner’s death on instant video replay.

We Charge Genocide (“WCG”) was formed to center the voices and experiences of the young people of color disproportionately and violently targeted by the Chicago Police Department. As part of this effort, WCG focuses on training Chicagoans to record police behavior during interactions with civilians as a way to lift up young people’s experiences and voices. In the face of rampant police abuses with no condemnation from the City of Chicago, we see watching the cops as a method to improve police accountability. Videos recording abusive behavior during police stops in New York City have been effective in shifting public consciousness when combined with broader organizing efforts. Video documentation can support victims’ stories otherwise disfavored for the perspectives of the police themselves – an especially important effect when so many victims of police violence are Black, young, and/or charged with a crime.

As promoters of copwatching, we recognize that it is absolutely fundamental that civilians be the ones holding the cameras. When police control the cameras, those cameras are at the service of police violence.

Of course, recording police activity alone cannot end police violence. As many have pointed out, the police murders of Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Oscar Grant, and many others were caught on camera. Copwatching must be a part of a larger community organizing effort that includes diverse approaches such as Know Your Rights trainings and the development of transformative community processes for accountability. Only through making the police obsolete in our communities can we begin to create the significant cultural shifts needed in U.S. dialogues about race and criminalization.

We are concerned that the current conversation around body cameras supports a destructive narrative in which police need only to be reformed, and that “guilty” victims of police violence do not deserve to survive. We reject both of these premises. First, we oppose reforms that give additional resources to police departments in general – these reforms only provide the appearance of legitimacy to an inherently racist, violent institution. Second, We Charge Genocide fundamentally rejects the notion that “guilty” victims of police violence deserve extrajudicial executions. We are mindful of the ways in which body cameras could be used to justify police murder by people who look for such pretexts. Finally, we are concerned that turning the cops into walking cameras is nothing but an expansion of the surveillance state – the fruit of a poisonous tree.

All reforms that strengthen the prison industrial complex must be strongly opposed. Body cameras will not halt extrajudicial executions by police officers, only providing us more horrific footage to view. The only solution to oppressive policing is to abolish the institution. To this end, We Charge Genocide will continue to work for initiatives that serve our communities, including reparations for victims of police torture, Civilian Police Accountability Projects, and initiatives for data transparency in police activities. We ask that you join with members of your community to reject body cameras as a band-aid solution in the struggle against police violence. 39% of Chicago’s 2014 operating budget was allocated to the Chicago Police Department in a period where schools and community services faced sharp funding cuts and closures. Any viable resolution to the issue of police violence must involve reallocating these resources from militarized police into community services to benefit all Chicagoans.

Esaw Garner, wife of Eric Garner, breaks down during a rally for her late husband on July 19 in New York (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

“I was just minding my own business. Every time you see me you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today!”

I made the mistake of watching the video in which NYPD choke and arrest 43-year-old Staten Island resident Eric Garner until he was dead on the sidewalk. It’s horrific. On July 17, Garner was approached by two plainclothes police officers who questioned him about selling untaxed cigarettes. A frustrated Garner repeatedly tells the officers that he hasn’t done anything wrong and that he doesn’t have any cigarettes on his person. Onlookers, including 22-year-old Ramsey Orta, who recorded the exchange, keep saying that all Garner had done was break up a fight. The police seem uninterested in this tidbit and continue to question Garner about the cigarettes. One reaches toward Garner, who responds by saying, “Don’t touch me, please,” while swatting the officer’s hand away. At this point, the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, puts Garner in a chokehold. Three uniformed officers run over to assist, and Garner is taken to the ground.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! Get off of me, get off of me!”

Garner remained handcuffed, on the ground, for several minutes after he died. An initial autopsy report shows no damage to his neck bones or windpipe. The likely cause of death is a heart attack, precipitated by the arrest, chokehold and takedown. Garner weighed 350 pounds and had chronic asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea. He is survived by his wife, six children and two grandchildren.

What more is there to say? What more can be said after the death of a black person at the hands of police? We’ve heard it all time and again, followed by promises to do better, to change the culture of policing, to foster better relationships with black communities. Yet, we still end up here.

Garner had been arrested a number of times before. According to the New York Daily News, he was “due in court in October on three Staten Island cases, including charges of pot possession and possession or selling untaxed cigarettes.” He may well have been involved in illegal activities. Do these low level crimes justify the persistent harassment that so exasperated Garner? Do they warrant massive police intervention? Do they excuse the use of a chokehold that has been outlawed since 1993?

Sadly, that’s usually the case. And the behavior of the police is rarely interrogated in the same way.

Think of this man lying breathless on the sidewalk, handcuffed, with no rush to get him medical attention. Think about the fact there were five cops involved in the arrest of one unarmed man being accused of a nonviolent crime. Think of how, in the face of witnesses and a camera, an officer still felt comfortable enough to use an illegal chokehold on Garner. We have ceded so much power to the police, and they brazenly flaunt it without fear of repercussion.

Mayor de Blasio has promised a full investigation into Garner’s death, headed by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which did not have a leader for the first six months of the administration (Richard Emery was appointed chair on the day Garner died) and which has been described by NYCLU attorney Chris Dunn as “on life support.” Officer Pantaleo has been stripped of his gun and badge. It’s a start.

But this isn’t about one officer or even this one investigation. It’s not even about the more than 1,000 civilian complaints of NYPD employing illegal chokeholds since 2009. This about the disregard for black life and humanity that fuels policing. It’s about the amount of authority police have over our lives, deciding when and where we die. It’s about the daily harassment, the constant fear and the perpetual mourning. We can’t breathe.

“I was just minding my own business. Every time you see me you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today!”

For Eric Garner, it did stop that day. The harassment stopped when his life did. Must we all die for the abuse to end?